Somewhere Near the Czech Border

This picture was taken on the hill above the village. Notice there is no shadow of the camera. I thought that was clever.

Bielatal Weekend
5.October.2008

The weekend began Friday morning wedged between two child seats and two children in the back of a 1994 VW Golf diesel. The 5 and 6 year old girls proclaimed “Henry ist mein Kopfkissen” (Henry is my pillow) over and over and then sang more German childrens’ songs than I knew existed. For the relatively short distance, it was a very long trip but once we arrived in Bielatal, a small village within sight of the Czech republic, the weekend became more relaxing. Bielatal is a small town of about 1000 inhabitants. Aside from those who buy summer or weekend houses in the area, everyone that lives there has lived there their entire life, as have their parents, grandparents and so forth. The village, like many others in Germany, is essentially dying; the children are moving away to pursue careers because there is essentially no way to make a living in these areas anymore. Great place to visit though. It’s called the Sächsiche Schweiz. To me, that sound a lot like Sexy Switzerland, but it means something else.

This is a picture of the town.

The grandparents live in a 204 year old former farm house. The first floor has obviously had the electricity added after the walls were built and the metal rings used to retain the pigs and cows are still on the walls. Changes, however, have been made since 1805 and the two story house has a bit of character. Each of the many small rooms has its own wood burning heater/stove and that’s a good thing because it was real cold the entire time. It is the German way to keep all doors in a house closed and they generally have more of them. Where we would have a hallway, they have doors. Spending a few days in the cold house really emphasized the heat-saving origins of this somewhat annoying practice.


This is the house across the street.

The Grandfather had just taken on the ambitious project of rebuilding the entire front wall of the house. Despite his grandfatherly age, he decided he had to do it himself because contractors and professional builders aren’t precise enough. There’s a chance the last Americans he saw in the area were those flying by and dropping bombs but he was enthusiastic about explaining what life was like during and after WWII in East Germany. It wasn’t good. They had to get on lists to buy pretty much everything from building materials to food. A lot of the resources went over to the west or Russia. They used to say the pork was exported and only the poo remained. Somehow we got on the topic of oral hygiene at breakfast and he explained his theory to the table. Pull out every other tooth, healthy or not. That way, it’s much easier to clean between them. Hilarious.




We hiked in the morning on one of the little mountains in the area. If you could represent anesthesia graphically in a three dimensional sort of way, the landscape would be localized anesthesia. It is mostly flat with mild rolling hills but every once in a while, there’s an abrupt plateau. When it’s foggy in the morning, it looks like it’s hovering above the earth. It was a nice hike with unique scenery, fresh air, and a local history lesson from Herr Seifert. I also learned that kids have inner emotion dice that they roll unconsciously every 30 seconds. One means angry and tired. Six means happy and full of energy. This thirty second rule, however, does not apply if there are things (rocks, trees, exchange students) to climb on. Then they stay at six for a while.





We took an old metal and wood carriage powered by a horse back to the house.

The small town was celebrating the Erntedank fest, a Harvest festival at the big farm house. The Grandmother Seifert was spinning yarn, folks were grilling bratwursts, and selling cookies, bread, artsy stuff. All of the kids were going crazy over tractor rides. It definitely had the small town atmosphere. It was a very unique experience!

This is a picture of me, gazing contemplatively at the horizon.
Take care,
-H